The size of mass storage continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. At the same time, the data that is stored on mass storage devices also continues to grow. Many applications are designed to take advantage of this expanded storage and often install files that would have consumed hard drives of only a few years ago. Data centers also have found ways to use the increased storage capacity. Databases on the order of terabytes are common while databases of much larger sizes are also increasing in number. Quickly moving data between storage devices and applications has become a challenge for both personal and enterprise applications.
Hardware developers have responded by developing faster hard drives, larger hard drive caches, and more bandwidth between storage devices and CPUs. Despite the dazzling increase in performance, storing or retrieving data or code from a hard drive remains one of the most significant bottlenecks to increased performance. What is needed is a method and system to speed the transfer of data and code to both local and remote storage.